Kuril Islands: sea road to the deep north

There probably will not be a diplomatic agreement between Moscow and Tokyo over the return of the Kuril Islands, annexed by Russia in 1945. But the islanders of both nations are doing business with each other, the border is dissolving into the Siberian mists, and the new generation does not much care.

It is dawn in the port of Nemuro in the far north of Japan. The Coral White waits at its moorings as the Russians emerge from the buses that have just arrived, and the long farewells begin. A hundred or so Japanese have come to see off the group of 70 Russians from the nearby Southern Kuril Islands, who have been “visiting their Japanese friends”. The ship is piled high with packages containing wares unobtainable on the islands: carpets, vast numbers of umbrellas, plastic buckets. Once on board, the Russians shake hands with the Japanese who have remained on the quay and pose for photos: “Look, the Japanese are our friends now!” As the Coral White casts off its moorings to a long blast on its siren, the arms do not stop waving.

The boat draws away from the jetty, setting sail for Kunashiri, the southernmost island of the Kuril archipelago, some 40 km from Nemuro. The misty archipelago, the locals call it. About 30 islands, almost deserted, hard to get to, windswept, extend over 700 km from the north-eastern point of the Japanese island of Hokkaido to the southern tip of Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula. The islands are so shrouded in mist one might forget they were there, were they not the subject of endless disputes between Russia and Japan. They have been Russian since 1945, but Tokyo is constantly calling for the return of the southernmost four: Kunashiri (1,500 sq km), Etorofu (3,184 sq km), Shikotan (253 sq km) and Habomai (100 sq km) - a total of 5,037 sq km or 1.3% of the area of Japan and 0.03% of present day Russia.

Cape Nosappu at the end of the Nemuro peninsula has become a place of pilgrimage; from this headland you can glimpse the nearest of the Kurils, hardly 7 km away, inhabited by a handful of Russian troops with time on their hands. An eternal flame, designed to withstand the strongest winds, symbolises Japan’s unceasing struggle to recover these distant islands. And everywhere in Nemuro (population 35,000) Russian (...)

(1) For the historical background to the territorial dispute and a detailed analysis of the semantic debate surrounding the name of the Kuril Islands see Thierry Mormanne: “Le problème des Kouriles: pour un retour à Saint-Pétersbourg”, Cipango, Cahier d’études japonaises, no.1, Paris, January 1992.

(2) Last year Russia allowed Japan to catch some 2,300 t of fish (not including crab) in the southern Kuril Islands. That is less than 1% of the Southern Kurils’ fish stocks.

(3) The idea was immediately rejected by the Japanese, who will not for one moment consider leasing a territory they believe belongs to them. In the early 1990s, Moscow went so far as to suggest the Japanese buy the Southern Kurils back. The proposal was so unpopular, among both the Russian and Japanese populations, that it was dropped.

(4) At a summit between Boris Yeltsin and Japanese prime minister Keizo Obuchi in Moscow in November 1998, the two countries proposed a further opening of the strait to allow unorganised and even unplanned visits. But no action seems to have been taken on the proposal.

(5) Actually 7 February. The Japanese government declared that date “Northern Territories Day” in 1981 in memory of the Treaty of Shimoda that was signed on 7 February 1855.